1. Field of the Invention
The present embodiments relate generally to laser systems and more particularly to wavelength beam combining systems and methods.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Wavelength beam combining (WBC) is a method for scaling the output power and brightness from laser diode bars, stacks of diode bars, as well as other lasers arranged in one or two-dimensional array.
WBC methods have been developed to combine beams along the slow dimension of each emitter as well as the fast dimension of each emitter. See for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,192,062, 6,208,679 and 2010/0110556 A1. However, a system architecture having a smaller footprint, spatial combining along the non beam combining dimension and variable/tunable brightness output is desired.
The following application seeks to solve the problems stated.